Jigsaw puzzles are widely used for recreational purposes by people of all ages. The number, size and shape of the pieces in jigsaw puzzles, as well as the indicia disposed on individual pieces, varies widely depending upon the age and skill of the person for whom the puzzle is intended.
Puzzles also can be an educational tool for children. In particular, puzzles require the child to think, stimulate the child's interest, develop the child's attention span, contribute to the development of motor control, help the child to understand spatial relationships and part/whole relationships, to develop hand/eye coordination and to understand and test hypotheses. The puzzle may further contribute to other educational objectives depending upon the particular indicia presented on the puzzle pieces. For example, puzzles have been developed with pieces resembling letters, numbers, locations on a map and such.
Prior art puzzles geared toward children, however, have exhibited certain deficiencies. For example, a child typically will memorize the puzzle design very quickly, and thus will be able to complete the puzzle by rote after a short period of time. This rote solution to the prior art puzzle will be based on the shapes of the puzzle pieces, with little attention being given to the indicia printed thereon. Typically, the child will become bored with the puzzle after the solution has been memorized, and the puzzle will thus fall into disuse.
Another deficiency of available puzzles for children is that the puzzles often will not match the child's cognitive level, or will match the child's cognitive level for only a short period of time. Thus, the child will rapidly outgrow the puzzle, and will want puzzles with smaller pieces, more complex indicia and such to stimulate his or her interest. If the puzzle is too easy the child will become bored, while if the puzzle is too complex the child may become frustrated. The importance and difficulty of matching a child's cognitive level and drawing on things within a child's cognitive experience as part of any learning exercise is treated in the well known teachings of Jean Piaget.
Another seemingly unavoidable deficiency of known puzzles is the inevitable tendency of children to lose puzzle pieces. A particular odd-shaped puzzle piece is often difficult or impossible to replace, thereby rendering the entire puzzle useless or unappealing.
Various attempts have been made to provide puzzles with increased appeal and/or increased educational value for children. For example, one recent puzzle includes a plurality of laminated paper pieces of irregular shape and adapted to fit within a frame. The uppermost layer is a glossy white paper which will removably accept the markings of a grease pencil. The child may thus create his or her own puzzle by drawing a selected design or picture on the glossy white top layer of the puzzle pieces with the grease pencil. This particular prior art puzzle also has certain deficiencies. First, young children may not have a sufficiently developed artistic ability to create a puzzle design that will stimulate their own interest. Thus, the child's own art work will often be below his or her cognitive level. Second, as noted above, the child will typically learn to solve a puzzle based on the particular arrangement of puzzle pieces. Thus, the child will be able to readily solve the puzzle with little attention being paid to the indicia they created, and in fact the child may learn to solve the puzzle with no indicia. These puzzles also have been limited to the particular grease pencil or crayon sold therewith. The young child will often want to experiment with other writing implements, and may create an indelible image on the pieces to effectively ruin the puzzle. In addition to the above described specific deficiencies, pieces are apt to be irreplaceably lost, and the child will outgrow the puzzle, as would be the case with any other traditional puzzle.
The prior art includes many other attempts to enhance the challenge and/or enjoyment of puzzles. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,954,616 which issued to Mogard on Oct. 4, 1960 shows a puzzle having an opaque base and an opaque sheet that can be inserted into the base. The opaque sheet includes various indicia, such as street signs or the like. The puzzle of U.S. Pat. No. 2,945,616 further includes a plurality of pieces bearing indicia which in some way corresponds to the indicia on the sheet of material slid into the base. This puzzle is intended to function as a teaching aid by requiring an association to be made between the puzzle piece and the corresponding indicia on the sheet. In certain embodiments, the puzzle of U.S. Pat. No. 2,954,616 includes a transparent cover sheet that can be slid into the base to retain the puzzle pieces in their assembled condition.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,302,013 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,486,018 each show cases having transparent covers for storing jigsaw puzzles in various stages of completion.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,419,971 issued to Ribken on Jan. 7, 1969, and is directed to a tracing game with various overlays that are mountable on a board to create a composite image.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,280,609 issued to Williamson on Apr. 21, 1942 and shows the use of various indicia-bearing square pieces that can be assembled to either create or complete a puzzle.
This prior art generally does not provide adequate levels of recreational, educational and developmental activity simultaneously.
In view of the above, it is an object of the subject invention to provide a puzzle with enhanced ability and versatility as a learning tool for children, and that will match the child's cognitive level and will enable the child to draw on and employ things already in his or her cognitive repertoire.
It is another object of the subject invention to provide a versatile puzzle that can be used with other media to attract the child's attention to the other media and to the puzzle and to simultaneously develop various learning skills.
An additional object of the subject invention is to provide a puzzle that enables the child to develop their own puzzle designs and representations either by tracing or by creating their own design or picture.
Still another object of the subject invention is to provide a puzzle that can be used to create a three-dimensional puzzle design for use by visually impaired children or children who require additional hand/eye coordination development.
Yet another object of the subject invention is to provide a puzzle that will removably receive any of a broad variety of means for creating two or three-dimensional indicia.
A further object of the subject invention is to provide a puzzle that is durable and that is particularly well adapted to accept replacement pieces.
It is a further object of the subject invention to provide a puzzle that can be rendered more challenging for a child as the child grows older.